


Toads

by TashaTheTerrifying



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Chilton has pet toads, Fanart, Gen, just a cute little something, set during Yakimono, way too many time jumps for such a short story
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-23
Updated: 2016-07-23
Packaged: 2018-07-26 03:50:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 867
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7559011
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TashaTheTerrifying/pseuds/TashaTheTerrifying
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Frederick Chilton has never really been an "animal person", with one exception – toads.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Toads

Frederick’s lungs are being burned by the freezing winter air. He gasps for breath as his formerly adrenaline pumped legs start to turn to jelly. “Chilton!” Jack Crawford’s voice echoes like a hunting horn behind him. Kill on sight – the thought of a bullet piercing his heart makes the aforementioned organ beat as though it is trying to escape his doomed body. Jack Crawford is now within sight of him. Frederick’s face is numb and he has to vomit. It’s too late now to hide, _to burrow down into the ground and wait out the long winter_. It’s too late to flee the country, _to bury oneself like a toad and just wait for the rain to return_. All he can do now is surrender.

•

Frederick Chilton has never really connected with animals, with one exception – toads. He supposes it dates back to the sticky summer of 1979 when he and his parents piled into a station wagon for a road trip through several of the great western national parks. On the long stretch between Arches and Yellowstone, they stopped at a motel in the middle-of-nowhere, Utah. Little Freddy, nearing age nine, explored a shady grove near the motel and discovered a pond (more like a puddle) of tiny, black tadpoles. Being a curious boy, Freddy scooped up a few of them in an empty water bottle. He carried the tadpoles with him for the entire trip: holding the bottle on his lap through dirt roads in Wyoming, endless farmland in Indiana, and finally back to the crowded streets of Maryland. He cared for those tadpoles more than he would care for anything or anyone else in his life – more than his friends, his family.

When the tadpoles grew up, he identified them as Great Basin spadefoot toads; they had little spades on their back feet, which they used to burrow into the sand during the day. In the winter, the toads would bury themselves and hibernate, reemerging only with the arrival of spring. Since those first tadpoles, Frederick has always kept a few toads. He accredits his toads with the fact that he never got laid during college – better to blame several sets of glassy, protruding eyes watching you from their terrarium than a lack of empathy and grandiose delusions.

•

Frederick comes to, slumped in one of his armchairs, Hannibal’s voice instructing him to run still ringing in his ears. He blinks the blurriness from his eyes and gazes down at his chest – there are bloodstains seeping into his shirt and two little eyes looking at him from his belly. Frederick blinks again and the eyes blink back at him. “Benji,” Frederick murmurs, gazing down at the toad’s eyes, disproportionately large for its small body – Benji is the baby of the four toads Frederick currently has. Frederick’s breathing quickens as he takes in the gravity of his whole situation. Blood is splattered across the floor, the FBI has been knocking at his door, Abel Gideon is dead in his basement, Hannibal had broken into his house. _He has to get out of here_ , but then he sees Benji’s innocent eyes staring up at him.

Frederick gingerly picks the tiny toad up, his hands shaking. “How did you get out?” he mutters; the toad just blinks at him with those gigantic eyes. Frederick staggers through the blood and rounds a corner – the toads’ terrarium is lying there, tipped over, red sand spilling out of it and mixing with blood. Two larger toads are sitting in the mess; one starts to chase an escaped cricket. A third toad, the biggest, is crouched on a TV remote. His limbs weak, Frederick stands the terrarium back up – he doesn’t want to think about his greater problems yet; the toads are all that occupy his mind. He shoos the two toads in and puts the remote with the largest toad on it in the tank. Lastly, Frederick gently places Benji into the terrarium, his heart pounding wildly.

He gives them a shaky look over before continuing to the kitchen, where his worst nightmares come to light. Frederick gags, swallowing down vomit – he will have to run as far away as possible as quickly as possible, flee the country, go somewhere he cannot be extradited from. A ringing sound fills his ears and grasps a counter top to stop himself from collapsing. A lonesome croak echoes through the house – _shit!_ Frederick grabs a pen and scribbles something on a nearby notepad.

Several days later, Tattle Crime would later run a cover featuring the crime scene photo of a note reading “please take care of the toads” surrounded by blood and topped with the headline “Inside the Twisted Mind of a Serial Killer – Cold-Blooded Murder Cares for Toads More Than People”.

•

Staring past Alana Bloom’s head into the one-way mirror, Frederick’s mind is surrounded by a cottony fog. Gravity seems to be acting on him with ten times its normal force, pulling his tired body back into the Earth’s core. _If only he had burrowed down like the spadefoot toads_. He gazes blankly ahead, wondering what will happen to his toads, hoping little Benji stays safe, when the glass shatters with a bang.

**Author's Note:**

> I don't know what that just was. 
> 
> And yes, I do have four pets toads and the littlest is named Benji and he's super cute.
> 
> If you notice any problems with grammar/punctuation, please point them out! Feedback is always greatly appreciated!


End file.
